When you install the OneDrive app for Mac, a copy of your OneDrive is downloaded to your Mac and put in the OneDrive folder. This folder is kept in sync with OneDrive. If you add, change, or delete a file or folder on the OneDrive website, the file or folder is added, changed, or deleted in your OneDrive folder and vice versa.

To upload files to OneDrive automatically, just copy or move the files to your OneDrive folder using the Finder, or save them in your OneDrive folder from an app. Files you upload this way can be up to 10 GB in size. If you installed the OneDrive app on other computers, the files will automatically be added to the OneDrive folders on them, too.

You can also use the Finder to rename and delete files, create new folders, and move files around in your OneDrive folder. The changes will automatically be made in OneDrive and your other computers that have the OneDrive app installed.

Tip

To rotate photos in OneDrive, open them in Preview, rotate them, and then save them. The photos will be automatically updated in OneDrive.

If you use a lot of storage space in OneDrive, it might take a long time to download all your files when you first install the OneDrive app. For tips on maximizing the transfer speed, see Maximize upload and download speed.

OneDrive is following recommendations from Apple that Mac OS X apps have sandboxing. With sandboxing, the OneDrive app will access only the files it needs on your Mac. This means we need to ask you to confirm the location of your OneDrive folder. If you select any folder other than your current OneDrive folder, you'll have to go back through setup and re-download the contents of your OneDrive.
To learn more about app sandboxing, search the Apple website.

For each folder, you can choose to sync everything in the folder, individual folders within the folder, and files that aren't in any subfolders within the folder. If you choose to sync only some items, new items you add to the OneDrive folder on your Mac will sync to OneDrive, but items you add to OneDrive from the website or other devices won't be synced to your Mac unless they're in the folders you chose to sync. If you choose to stop syncing folders on your Mac, they'll be deleted from the OneDrive folder on that computer, but they'll remain in OneDrive.

Note

You can't choose individual files you want to sync, and you can't choose to sync files or folders shared with you.